1 Game Profile

1.1 Estimated Outcomes on BGG

This table displays the selected game’s current values on four BGG outcomes (UsersRated, Average, GeekRating, Weight) along with my predictive model(s) estimated values for where these games are likely to end up.

Published	ID	Name	Type	UserRatings	Average	GeekRating	Weight
2021	314125	Factory 42	Current	70	7.01	5.55	3.75
			Estimated	600	7.42	5.98	3.14

To see more information about the game on boardgamegeek, click on the game’s ID or Name to go straight to the game’s profile page.

1.2 Game Description

Description
Factory 42 is a Euro-style board game for 2-5 players. The game tells the story of the workweek of Marxistic dwarves in a steampunk industrial setting, placing the player in the role of factory Overseers. It combines worker placement and a cube tower to create a resource management puzzle. Factory 42 is a cutthroat competitive game with elements of co-operation and deals involving Economics, Fantasy, Industry and Negotiation with a pinch of satire, but not too much to make it a Humor game. It satisfyingly blends two-fold tensions: camaraderie forged in shared goals, and the opportunistic trampling of temporary competition. A tight game of glancing blows and communal glory creating a wicked blend of sharp elbows and shared ambition. Visually, Factory 42 takes its influence from 1920’s Soviet Union propaganda, fantasy literature and elements of pre-WWI Prussian decor. The general process control at Factory 42 is as follows: Receive work orders/requisitions from the government Receive some of the requisitioned resources (as determined by the cube tower) Load resources (and spike additional resources) onto railcars Transfer the railcars to docks at individual manufacturing facilities Burn leftover resources to generate steam Trade resources on the open market Use steam and resources to manufacture requested items. Capricious Bureaucracy:* Resources made available to all players, making up a common pool, are delivered via the Bureaucracy Tower; a mechanic that can deliver or withhold resources in a random manner. This replicates the notion that “the powers that be” redirect funds/resources by tying them up in red tape, trapping resources that would otherwise normally be available for the general populace. What goes into the tower does not always come out, or may have been held up during some unknown bureaucratic process, to later materialize when least expected Requisition:* Tactical decisions start with the acquisition of resources vital to the production process. The order of worker meeples on the requisition line dictates the volume of resources acquired for the common pool (available to all) and the number that can be obtained and stored in a player’s personal warehouse. Choices made here can benefit a player’s future actions but may also unwittingly aid a rival, making each choice so very important. Loading:* Players can tactically direct their workers to the loading bays where resources are loaded onto lines of rail transport. Order here can be extremely vital to one’s success. Misjudging the order (or cunningly foreseeing the future) may lead a player to have to load a cart for a rival rather than for one’s self. Alliances may be made during this process, just as enemies can be made of rivals, depending on choices made when loading Shipping and Storage:* Once loaded, each rail cart proceeds to the shipping location awaiting direction. Workers have the option of forwarding on the loaded carts to player’s docks. Once more order of placement is paramount as carts are only shipped in order. A cart may not contain useful resources and so could be sent to a rival, taking up valuable storage space, or maybe it will benefit a rival in an attempt to build a verbally agreed alliance. Often a cart has been loaded with a wide variety of resources and only part of this precious load is of use. Limited storage space in player’s personal docks and warehouses dictates the shipping decision-making process as much as a rival’s needs Trade and Research:* Commodities may be traded on an ever changing market, often enabling an unnecessary resource to be exchanged at a price, for something of more use. Research is equally important, allowing players to expand storage facilities, improve material handling in the manufacturing process or even learn how to use Invention cards to add special actions/abilities during play Manufacture and Accounting:* The government dictate what should...no, what must be manufactured during a game round. The government orders must be completed or many, sometimes all players suffer sanctions. A degree of cooperation is needed here for the greater good of Dwarven society, but on an individual level, completion of a government order leads to reward and ultimately progression on the path to victory

1.3 Game Information

Information on the game’s designers, artists, families, mechanics and categories from BGG.

For the full profile of the selected game, click on the links in the table or go to https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/314125

1.4 Explaining Predictions

For each of the predictions above, I used models that were trained on historical boardgamegeek data in order to predict the selected game. How did the model(s) arrive at their predictions? The following plot displays Shapley values to indicate what features were most influential for the model’s predictions. Anything in blue increased the model’s predictions, anything in red decreased the model’s predictions.

2 Finding Similar Games

What games are similar to Factory 42? I compare the selected game to every other game on boardgamegeek based on its mechanics, playing time, complexity, and game type. The tables below display the games which had the most similar data to Factory 42. The reported similarity is the cosine similarity between the selected game and all other games published before 2021.

This similarity score ranges from -1 to 1, where similarity of 1 indicates that games are exactly identical (a game will have a score of 1 with itself).

Note: This analysis does not look at a game’s ratings on BGG, publisher, artist, or designer - it focuses on finding similar games based on how they play, not how they are rated or by their theme.

2.1 Most Similar Games

The table below displays games with the most similar data to Factory 42. Click on a game’s ID or Name to go straight to its profile on boardgamegeek.

Rank	Published	ID	Name	Similarity	GeekRating	Average	Weight	UserRatings
--	2021	314125	Factory 42	1.00	5.55	7.01	3.14	70
1	2013	144733	Russian Railroads	0.99	7.52	7.76	3.41	16,244
2	2012	38765	Ground Floor	0.98	6.26	7.02	3.73	1,703
3	2019	228959	Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea	0.98	6.13	7.27	3.08	985
4	2020	269810	Nevada City	0.98	5.72	7.18	3.55	273
5	2015	184780	Dark Assembly	0.97	5.52	6.69	3.00	42
6	2015	138728	Domus Domini	0.97	5.58	6.59	2.50	138
7	2015	179918	The Producer: 1940-1944	0.96	5.54	6.03	3.65	150
8	2015	176557	My Fair Princess	0.96	5.53	6.52	2.86	48
9	2016	159059	The King's Abbey	0.96	5.83	6.92	3.21	612
10	2017	228882	Lagerstätten	0.95	5.54	6.22	3.00	89
11	2013	118732	Titans of Industry	0.95	5.55	6.52	2.73	98
12	2016	187785	Glenn Drover's Empires: Galactic Rebellion	0.95	5.55	6.39	3.29	145
13	2020	300944	Gates of Mara	0.95	5.55	7.17	3.00	61
14	2013	143782	Global Mogul	0.94	5.67	6.97	3.40	235
15	2020	241829	Movie Empire	0.94	5.57	6.71	2.56	129
16	2010	42052	Vinhos	0.94	6.92	7.48	4.21	4,636
17	2014	160432	Ars Alchimia	0.94	5.71	6.72	2.33	364
18	2017	223455	Terra-017	0.94	5.53	6.91	2.75	70
19	2017	200890	Pixie Queen	0.93	6.09	7.17	3.14	1,027
20	2015	139245	Dilluvia Project	0.93	5.94	7.23	3.69	594
21	2016	189192	Mi Tierra: New Era	0.92	5.69	6.73	2.71	376
22	2019	252542	The Romans	0.92	5.60	7.12	3.00	113
23	2013	126274	Enclave: Zakon Krańca Świata	0.92	5.58	6.40	3.20	214
24	2000	884	Way Out West	0.92	5.68	6.14	2.62	688
25	2013	145068	Piwne Imperium	0.92	5.51	5.96	3.44	45

Click on the ID or Name for any game to go its profile page on boardgamegeek.

2.2 Most Similar, Highly Rated Games

What games are similar to Factory 42 while also being highly rated by the boardgamegeek community? In this table I multiply every neighboring game’s similarity score by its GeekRating. The resulting score is an attempt to balance these two quantities.

Rank	Published	ID	Name	Score	Similarity	GeekRating	Average	Weight	UserRatings
--	2021	314125	Factory 42	5.55	1.00	5.55	7.01	3.14	70
1	2013	144733	Russian Railroads	7.43	0.99	7.52	7.76	3.41	16,244
2	2016	203993	Lorenzo il Magnifico	6.73	0.89	7.53	7.88	3.30	11,296
3	2007	22545	Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery	6.55	0.91	7.20	7.53	3.13	10,013
4	2010	42052	Vinhos	6.53	0.94	6.92	7.48	4.21	4,636
5	2016	175640	Vinhos Deluxe Edition	6.51	0.87	7.47	8.16	4.06	5,221
6	2013	144592	Bruxelles 1893	6.37	0.90	7.08	7.64	3.59	5,067
7	2019	269511	Cooper Island	6.28	0.92	6.85	7.66	4.18	3,005
8	2002	3076	Puerto Rico	6.22	0.79	7.83	7.96	3.28	66,344
9	2020	284378	Kanban EV	6.22	0.82	7.54	8.59	4.36	3,614
10	2017	234277	Nusfjord	6.18	0.87	7.09	7.65	2.86	5,221
11	2012	38765	Ground Floor	6.15	0.98	6.26	7.02	3.73	1,703
12	2012	110327	Lords of Waterdeep	6.05	0.79	7.62	7.75	2.46	49,784
13	2019	228959	Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea	6.02	0.98	6.13	7.27	3.08	985
14	2015	173442	Empires: Age of Discovery	6.02	0.89	6.77	7.86	3.34	2,070
15	2014	109276	Kanban: Driver's Edition	5.96	0.82	7.29	7.82	4.36	6,304
16	2011	50750	Belfort	5.92	0.87	6.83	7.23	3.05	6,148
17	2013	127060	Bora Bora	5.88	0.81	7.23	7.57	3.74	9,512
18	2019	242684	Reavers of Midgard	5.86	0.89	6.58	7.45	2.91	2,302
19	2020	299960	Alma Mater	5.85	0.90	6.51	7.50	3.73	1,869
20	2015	181796	The Prodigals Club	5.78	0.88	6.53	7.30	3.26	2,351
21	2009	41002	Vasco da Gama	5.75	0.85	6.73	7.23	3.23	4,402
22	2015	154809	Nippon	5.74	0.81	7.06	7.67	3.78	4,547
23	2017	200890	Pixie Queen	5.68	0.93	6.09	7.17	3.14	1,027
24	2009	30658	Rise of Empires	5.67	0.90	6.32	7.03	3.55	2,049
25	2013	95527	Madeira	5.66	0.81	6.96	7.59	4.29	4,177

2.3 Why Are Games Considered Similar?

I first ran a dimension reduction method (PCA) to identify the main points of variation for games on BGG. The first 25 components explained roughly 50% of the overall variation in the dataset, so I computed the cosine similarity between every game’s score on these 25 components.

2.3.1 Plotting All Games

The following plot shows every game on BGG plotted on the first two principal components of variation. I then highlight where the selected game and its nearest neighbors fall on these first two components.

2.3.2 Game Profiles

Similarity scores are based on 25 principal components - the next table displays the selected game and its neighbors profiles on each of these components.

2.3.3 Examining Components

What are these components? The following plot shows which features contribute the most to each component.

Published	ID	Name	Publisher(s)	Designer(s)	Artist(s)	Categories	Families	Mechanics
2021	314125	Factory 42	Dragon Dawn Productions	Timo Multamäki	Lars Munck	Fantasy	Components: Drop Tower	Cube Tower
						Industry / Manufacturing	Crowdfunding: Kickstarter	Negotiation
							Setting: World of Zanziar	Semi-Cooperative Game
							Theme: Mining	Victory Points as a Resource
							Theme: Steampunk	Worker Placement

Individual Game Analysis